WHEN DOES HUMAN PERSONHOOD BEGIN?

Belief 1: It happens at conception

Sponsored link.

1

A newly formed zygote:
(commonly referred to as a "just-fertilized ovum")

Quotations:

Pope John Paul II said in the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C., on 1979-OCT-07: "...all human life
-- from the moment of conception and
through all subsequent stages -- is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God."Pope John Paul II 2 (1979)

"An embryo is an individual, no matter how small. While the embryo
receives cells from the mother and the father, it is neither the mother nor
the father." Pope John Paul II 3
(1995).

"To prevent birth is anticipated murder; it makes little difference
whether one destroys a life already born or does away with it in its nascent
stage. The one who will be a man is already one." Tertullian (160 - 220
CE) 4

Common pro-life beliefs:

Most people in the pro-life camp believe that human personhood begins at conception. That is, a
newly formed zygote (popularly called a "just-fertilized ovum"), as shown in the image above, is a full human being and
must be
protected as such. It has rights including the right to not be deprived of its
own life.

There are many reasons for the belief that personhood starts at conception:

Some base their belief on their religious faith. Their denomination and/or religion
teaches that God injects a soul into the zygote at the instant of
conception. Even though it is composed of only one cell, it becomes a human person at that time due the presence of the soul.
The concept
of a soul is unique to certain religions.

Others point out that shortly after conception, a unique DNA code is
formed which will remain unchanged through the life of the fetus, and after
birth. Scientists define this event as the start of a human organism -- of
human life. Many
pro-lifers assert that the presence of a unique human DNA code also signals the
start of a human person.

Almost everyone agrees that a newborn child is a human person. One can work
backwards in time through the birth process, fetal development,
embryo growth, pre-embryo stage, and finally end up at the zygote: the
start of a human organism.
Prior to that point,
there was no human life. There was just an ovum and one very
lucky sperm, neither of which is considered a form of life by most scientists. Conception is the first point where a single, living
human organism exists that has a good chance to grow and become a newborn.

The
zygote is simply the earliest stage of human development; it is what human
persons look like about 9 months before we are born.

Some pro-lifers are reluctant to define the advent of
personhood at a later point than conception, because this might lead to a
"slippery slope" situation: The public might reach a consensus
that abortions should be legal and freely available at progressively
later times in gestation.

This essay continues below.

Sponsored link:

Ten statements in favor of human personhood starting at conception:

Jon E. Dougherty of WorldNetDaily.com writes that humans
are never "...'fully-developed.' We're not born 'complete.' We grow,
change, mature and age constantly, which means we're always 'developing,'
and we develop though the first nine months of our lives attached to a
'host' — our mothers. So, the fact that the first nine months of our
developmental life is in utero is of no consequence to our
overall lifespan; it is just the first stage. There are many developmental
stages — early, middle and late. But life has to begin somewhere. We don't
go from 'nothing' to adulthood....It begins when it begins —
at the moment a human being is biologically 'under construction'." 5

Jason M. Steffens writes: "There is, in
fact, no doubt from a scientific standpoint that an unborn
child is a life from the moment of conception.Not only is
it a life, but, 'by its intrinsic biological nature,' it is a human
life from the moment of conception, for 'it can be nothing else.' This is
because 'to be a human being is decided for an organism at the moment of
fertilization of the ovum.' By the end of the eighth week of its existence,
an unborn child 'has features that are distinctly human,' confirming
the child’s humanness. French geneticist Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune testified
before a United States Senate subcommittee in 1981: 'To accept the fact that
after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being is
no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being
from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain
experimental evidence'." 6

Floare Farcas wrote: "Each
of us has a very precise staring moment. This is when all the necessary and
sufficient genetic information is gathered inside one cell, the fertilized
egg. This is the moment of conception. There is no difference between the
early person that you were at conception and the late person which you are
now! You were and are a human being! Consequently, unborn babies must be
protected and guaranteed their 'right to life'." 7

Kieth Moore & T.V. Persaud
wrote: "Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm
(Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being.
The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote." This is
a
definition of the word "zygote" from their book on embryology
and birth defects. 8

Bruce M. Carlson wrote: "Almost all higher animals start their lives
from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of
fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or
ontogeny, of the individual." 9

Jerome Lejeune wrote: "...each of us has a
unique beginning, the moment of conception...when the information carried by
the sperm and by the ovum have encountered each other, then a new human
being is defined because its own personal and human constitution is entirely
spelled out. The information which is inside the first cell obviously tells
this cell all the tricks of the trade to build himself as the individual
this cell is already....to build that particular individual which we will
call later Margaret or Paul or Peter, it's already there, but it's so small
we cannot see it ...It’s what life is, the formula is there; ....if you
allow the formula to be expanded by itself, just giving shelter and nurture,
then you have the development of the full person." 10

Dianne Irving writes: "To begin with,
scientifically something very radical occurs between the processes of
gametogenesis and fertilization — the change from a simple part of one human
being (i.e., a sperm) and a simple part of another human being (i.e., an
oocyte — usually referred to as an 'ovum' or 'egg'), which simply possess
'human life', to a new, genetically unique, newly existing, individual,
whole living human being (an embryonic single-cell human zygote). That is,
upon fertilization, parts of human beings have actually been transformed
into something very different from what they were before; they have been
changed into a single, whole human being. During the process of
fertilization, the sperm and the oocyte cease to exist as such, and a new
human being is produced." 11

Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. writes: "The underlying premise in the arguments
pro-abortionists give against fetal personhood is that non-persons can
change into persons. They are saying that a living being can undergo a
radical, essential change in its nature during its lifetime. But there is a
logical problem here. If the change was biologically inevitable from
conception, given time, then this change is not a change in essential
nature. This is because if the being naturally initiates the change, it must
be in its nature from the beginning to do so. If it is in its nature to do
so, then despite any changes in such characteristics as independence, place
of residence, physical development, or demonstration of mental ability, what
the being is in later life is what the being is from the beginning of its
life. This means that if we are persons with the right to be free from
aggression later in life, we are persons even at conception." 12

Francis Beckwith writes: "...not only is the conceptus human insofar as
being caused by humans, it is a unique human individual, just as each of us is.
...It has its own unique genetic code (with forty-six chromosomes),
which is neither the mother's nor the father's. From this point
until death, no new genetic information is needed to make the unborn
entity a unique individual human.....Although sharing the same nature with all human beings, the
unborn individual, like each one of us, is unlike any that has
been conceived before and unlike any that will ever be conceived
again." 13

Pope John Paul II wrote" "Some try to justify abortion by claiming that
the product of conception, at least until a certain number of days, cannot yet
be considered a personal human life....In reality from the moment in which the
ovum is fertilized, a new life begins which is not that of the father or of the
mother but of a new human being which develops of its own accord. It would never
be made human if it were not human already....This has always been clear, and
modern genetic science offers clear confirmation." 3

Implications of the belief that human personhood starts at conception:

It is difficult to overemphasize the implications of the belief that human
personhood starts at conception. It makes every abortion clinic the moral
equivalent of Auschwitz, the most infamous of the Nazi death camps.

Essentially all pro-lifers believe that personhood begins at conception. This
belief is often not specifically stated when they discuss the ethics of
abortion, but it is always present.

2006-MAR-06, Governor Mike Rounds (R) of South Dakota signed
bill HB1215 into law. Effective 2006-JUL-01, nearly all
abortions in South Dakota will be criminal acts. Any doctor performing any
abortion at any time between conception and childbirth runs the risk of a heavy
fine and lengthy jail sentence, unless she/he can prove that the procedure was
necessary to save the life of the woman. When signing the bill, Rounds implied
his belief that human personhood starts at conception. At the bill signing, he
said:

"In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well
people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society. The
sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is wrong because
unborn children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our
society. I agree with them." 15,16

Eric Versluys, a
senior in
mechanical engineering at Colorado State University implied his belief that
personhood starts at conception. He wrote in a letter to the editor of The Rocky
Mountain Collegian:

"The world has been in the dark about a terrible breach of human rights that has
been going on for more than 30 years. For the past 33 years, about 48.6 million
people have been brutally murdered. Still going on today, approximately 3,500
people lose their lives every day at the hands of trained killers. It isn't
going on in the bush of Africa or the sands of the Middle East, but down the
block from where you live."

"South Dakota did not ban abortion to begin "full-scale warfare on women's
rights." That a woman has a right to choose is a basic inalienable right. South
Dakota merely defined the fetus as a member of our species. It legislatively
made a baby a person, making abortion akin to murder. A woman does not have the
right to murder her children. If the editorial staff had read the news, perhaps
they would have come across the South Dakota bill, HB 1215. I quote:"

'The guarantee of due process of law under the Constitution of South
Dakota applies equally to born and unborn human beings, and that under
the Constitution of South Dakota, a pregnant mother and her unborn
child, each possess a natural and inalienable right to life.'

"The fact is, too many people are afraid to stand up for the most vulnerable and
most helpless members of our society or even acknowledge their existence. At
least South Dakota has everyone's best interests in mind. If you do too, go out
and get educated on the horrors going on behind closed doors. You may be
surprised." 17

Sponsored links:

References:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

The color microphotograph of a just-fertilized ovum shown by permission from Dr. R. C. Wagner,
Department of Biological Sciences, at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE. They have many
other photographs at their Web page: http://www.udel.edu/
We thank Dr. Wagner for allowing us to reproduce these microphotographs.